Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Have One Major Blind Spot, Says Royal Expert — And It's Costing Them
Royal expert analyses what went wrong with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle after leaving the royal family in 2020.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s 2020 split from the royal family probably would have been long forgotten had the flames not been revived time and again over the past several years. After leaving the UK, the couple criticized the Firm through various mediums and often at the wrong time. And while public opinion functions with the oscillating nature of a pendulum, the criticism levied on the monarchy by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex often arrived in bad taste.
When Harry and Markle gave an explosive interview to Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, the Duke’s grandfather, Prince Phillip, was seriously ill and passed away a month later. The pair later went on to do a tell-all docu-series on Netflix, and Harry wrote a sensational memoir, Spare, that was published a few months after the late Queen Elizabeth’s demise. “It was a serious miscalculation on Harry’s part. The country was bereft, grieving the one person who had been a constant for so long and who had spent her life in its service, and here was Harry, dragging his family through the mud,” royal expert Sarah Vine wrote in her column for the Daily Mail.
Vine believed that the consistently bad timing of the content the Sussexes put out was “ultimately” where it all went “wrong” for the couple. She claimed that the pair was unaware of how “charmed” their lives were. “For two people who claim to be so in tune with their feelings and those of others, time and again they have demonstrated a complete lack of emotional intelligence, combined with a weapons-grade sense of entitlement. They are so wrapped up in their own drama, so insulated in their bubble of privilege, they fail to realize how thoroughly charmed their existence is. And that is a most unattractive trait,” she wrote.
The royal expert further added that the Duke abandoned the royal ship when it “needed” him the “most”. She added, “At a time when the Royal Family needed Harry most, he not only slammed the door in their face, but he also tried to burn the place down on the way out. No one is suggesting he doesn’t have a right to be hurt – but weaponizing your pain as he has done only perpetuates the cycle of sadness.”
However, after years of conflict, the royal rift seems to be on the mend as Harry and Markle reunited with King Charles for a private meeting at Highgrove last month. The monarch met his grandkids, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, for the first time in four years. However, Prince William and Kate Middleton kept their distance from the family reunion and tended to their busy calendar.
Next year, the Invictus Games will return to the UK for the first time since its London debut. Birmingham will host the coveted tournament from July 10th to 17th, 2027. It will be interesting to see if the Duke has royal company at the Games.